"After many years of ultra-accommodative polices, it is clear that ongoing interventions have failed to boost actual economic growth and only exacerbated the destruction of the middle class. It is clear that employment growth has only been a function of population growth, as witnessed by the ongoing decline in the labor-force participation rates and the surging levels of individuals that have fallen out of the work-force. While we will continue to operate to foster maximum employment and price stability, the reality is that the economy overall remains far to weak to sustain higher interest rates or any tightening of monetary policy."

Back in September we explained why, contrary to both conventional wisdom and the BOJ's endless protests to the contrary, neither the BOJ nor the ECB have any interest in boosting QE at this - or any other point - simply because with every incremental bond they buy, the time when the two central banks run out of monetizable debt comes closer. Since then the ECB has jawboned that it may boost QE (but it has not done so), and overnight as reported previously, the BOJ likewise did not expand QE despite many, including Goldman Sachs, expecting it would do just that.

It appears even Goldman Sachs was surprised by the recent rally in US equities - especially in light of the explicit hawkishness of The Fed yesterday. In a trading note this morning, the bank says that market risks are real and rising (but are not overwhelming) as it explains, we assume with no intent at humor or sarcasm, that they "prefer to think of the recent equity rally as 'macro-free' rather than 'low quality'," reiterating their view of the cycle and of markets as "fundamentally upbeat." They do, however, admit over the last month, the likelihood of a drawdown in the US equity market further increased, and remains at mildly elevated levels.

The latest batch of European consumer confidence data is a very mixed bag. On the weak side, the French continue to be miserable, notable outliers to the rest of the majors, and German confidence has now fallen for 7 straight months. However, Italians have not been this confident since 2002 and for the first time since 2009, both Italian and Spanish consumer confidence is higher than Germany's. So if everyone is so damn confident, why does Draghi continue to push for moar emergency easing?

Based on the overnight market prints which are an oddly reddish shade of green, it took algos about 12 hours to realize that the reason they soared for most of October, namely hopes of an easier Fed which were launched with the terrible September jobs report and continued with increasingly worse US economic report in the past month, can not be the same reason they also soared yesterday after the announcement of a more hawkish than expected Fed statement which envisioned a stronger US economy and a removal of foreign considerations, which even more curiously took place on even worse data than the Fed's far more dovish September statement.

We would say today's main event is the culmination of the Fed's two-day meeting and the announcement slated for 2 pm this afternoon, however with the 90 economists polled by Bloomberg all expecting no rate hike, today's Fed decision also happens to be the least anticipated in years (which may be just the time for the Fed to prove it is not driven by market considerations and shock everybody, alas that will not happen). And considering how bad the economic data has gone in recent months, not to mention the recent easing, hints of easing, and outright return to currency war by other banks, the Fed is once again trapped and may not be able to hike in December or perhaps ever, now that the USD is again surging not due to its actions but due to what other central banks are doing.

With the second half of 2015 "grim" for Chinese auto sales, US automakers - who have field-of-dreams-like built inventories to record levels - have turned domestic for growth by extending credit for decades to anyone who can fog a mirror. That was all well and good until we discover this morning that the government's consumer confidence survey shows Americans auto-buying attitude is the lowest since Jan 2013. Automakers have two options, offer buy-one-get-one-free to all new Syrian refugees or cut production dramatically in hopes of easing inventory excess. Good luck.

Two biggest move overnight came from everyone's favorite carry pair, the USDJPY, which may have finally read what we said yesterday, namely that with the Fed and ECB both doing its job, there is little need for the Bank of Japan to repeat its Halloween massacre for the second year in a row, and as a result will keep its QQE program unchanged. It promptly tumbled from its 121 tractor level, to just above 120.25, where BOJ bids were said to be found. With the FOMC October meeting starting today, the other overnight catalyst was not surprisingly the latest Hilsenrath scribe in which he removed any uncertainty about a Wednesday hike, "leaving mid-December as the central bank’s last chance to raise rates this year."

Last week it was all about central banks, when both the ECB and the PBOC unleashed a massive market rally. This week it will be about even more central banks, this time the Fed, which won't hike, and the BOJ, which may but most likely won't as the Fed and the ECB already did its work for it, sending the Yen tumbling with their actions and/or jawboning.

"The basic assertion is the following: the U.S. economy is not showing signs of entering into recession, thus stocks are not at risk of falling into a sustained bear market. Unfortunately, this conclusion is not necessarily true. For history has shown on numerous occasions that you do not need to have an economic recession looming on the horizon to see U.S. stocks fall into a bear market."